


A Dozen Years

by spiders_n



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Spideychelle, SpideychelleSecretSanta2k19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:55:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22043671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiders_n/pseuds/spiders_n
Summary: When Peter was younger, May told him that sometimes you can love the right person with all your heart and still not be able to work it out. It's all about the timing. He knew that in theory but in practice it was kind of lonely.orPeter and MJ find each other three times after their break up.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 14
Kudos: 103
Collections: Spideychelle Secret Santa - 2k19





	A Dozen Years

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays to Smells, the lovely recipient of this secret santa gift. I hope you enjoy it! Let me know! <3

Peter and MJ were both seventeen when they got together. They were each other's first _everything_ , and even if it was way too early for him to ever admit it out loud, he knew that MJ was the girl he was supposed to fall in love with. That she was the love of his life. He knew even as soon as their second date as they awkwardly danced around each other, still not knowing how to exist around a person they liked so incredibly much. She confronted him about being Spider-Man that day and he just _knew._ He was sure when he tried to explain it all to her, when the thoughts of Ben and the mugging that caused his death made his words die in his throat, a lump that lodged itself in between Peter and the girl he so desperately wanted to be honest with. He knew when she pressed him only in so far as to ask if he was doing it for some unhealthy reason, if he felt like he couldn’t be a good person unless he did it. He knew when, once she accepted that he was, in fact, a teenage vigilante, and that he was one because he wanted to be, she threw herself into making him a better at it. 

Peter’s conviction that they were it for each other never wavered. Not really. Not even in their Sophomore year of college, when MJ gave up on him after a particularly bad night where, instead of meeting her at a mixer for all the research assistants in her department, something she’d made very clear to him she felt too anxious to go to alone, he got caught up in a six-hour-long hostage situation and didn’t make it. She was honest with him then, and that’s all he’d ever wanted from her. It wasn’t an angry exchange, she was never angry at him for being Spider-Man, just tired. Just lonely and really fucking tired. She loved him with all of herself and it was too much to ask of her to keep doing that while he was too busy Spider-Manning to give her all of himself back. He wanted to, he wanted to know _how to._ But he just...couldn't be for MJ what she needed and be Spider-Man. And people needed protecting, needed saving, and he _could_ do that. 

So he just nodded his head, told her he understood. He did understand. She kissed him with tears streaming down her face, held his own in her hands and made him promise to stay safe, to take breaks, and to care for himself in ways that are deeper than just taking a day off here and there. He promised. In turn, he makes her promise to spend her love on herself because she’s the only one in the world that actually deserved it. She nodded sadly and left.

Neither of them kept their promises. 

The next time Peter saw MJ was two years later, at Ned’s graduation party in California. He had gone to Caltech for undergrad and was excitedly awaiting an offer from a tech company in Silicon Valley. He invited both Peter and MJ, something he made sure they both knew before getting there. Despite what his friends and May and even Tony seemed to think, Peter wasn’t worried about seeing her. He and MJ didn't harbor negative feelings for eachother, they just— they just ran out the time they were meant to be together. Or at least that's how Peter felt about it all. 

He’d done an absolutely shitty job of getting over MJ, something that resulted in him generally avoiding romantic relationships altogether to further avoid the eventual realization that there is no such thing as being Spider-Man _and_ someone’s partner. That realization always hit too hard and left a feeling that lasted a lot longer than his Patrol induced bruises ever did. He had his fair share of coping mechanisms — unhealthy as they were. He was doing his mentor proud, stealing pages right out of the old man’s well-worn, leather-bound book. He slept with people occasionally, more to blow off steam and— if he was to be honest— to get rid of the near constant nagging feeling of not being _close enough_ to anyone or anybody. But it was never serious and he liked it that way because he couldn’t hurt anyone by not being able to give them everything they deserve. As far as he was concerned, he’d had his great love. Had MJ for two and a half blissful years of teamwork and effortless understanding and the kind of love he didn’t think existed outside of Jane Austin novels. And he’d lost her because there was no way for him to keep her and keep being Spider-Man, but well, he _had_ to keep being Spider-Man so he got what he got. Two years with the best the world had to offer. He’d take it. 

When Peter got to the party he spotted her immediately, tall and wearing a pair of jeans that seemed to make her legs go on for days. She looked good, as always, and Peter knew he’d done a decent job at putting himself together because he’d already been approached by a couple of Ned’s classmates. Flirty conversation aside, they were nice, and very complimentary and he'd gotten good usual jittery rambling out on them before moving on to his intended destination.

He found his way to MJ and the once over she gave him as he walked to her made him feel confident that they were both remembering, if nothing else, that they were definitely always good at the physical aspect of their relationship. Unfortunately, they both knew each other too well to not also recognize the depth of _not okay_ they were both trying and failing to hide, not just from each other, but the entire world. 

Two hours later MJ’s jeans were a crumpled mess on the floor of Peter’s hotel room, long forgotten as the two of them retraced old movements with mind-blowing ease. MJ’s hands on his wrists, Peter’s mouth on her neck, their chests heaving in unison, it was all so fucking easy and comfortable. Yeah, the sex was as good as he remembered, and yes, it really was like riding the world's best bike after years of being confined to moving only as quick is two feet can carry you, but the sex was _nothing_ compared to the intimacy. 

They talked for hours after, naked and in the dark, not looking at each other in the eye because they knew themselves too well. Knew they’d only end up doing more things they shouldn’t. Only want things that wouldn't work. Peter laid there, tucked under MJ’s arm, face half-buried in her slight bosom, smelling her _MJ_ scent and feeling at home in himself for the first time in what felt like ever. 

It turns out they’d both fucked themselves up in the two years they’d spent without the other. MJ hadn’t learned how to love herself as much as she loves everyone else, hadn’t worked out the balance of tenderness and toughness that it takes to be successful and happy at the same time. Peter was still trying to save the world because he couldn’t save his uncle, still trying to protect an entire city full of people while being a regular human. Neither of them had been particularly good and getting out of their bad habits, not good at working through things in any kind of healthy way, so they just used each other for what they hadn't been able to find any other people for. They were intimate with one another in a way they hadn’t been with anyone else. 

They talked about it all, and got it all out in the open. Peter told her everything he’d been keeping in, all the secrets he’d not even dared voice to May during their monthly coffee chats or Tony during their lab sessions. He admitted to her that he’d started to hate being Spider-Man, that he felt like he was losing himself each second he was in the suit, but he didn’t know how to be anything worthwhile without it. MJ confessed her sins, her mistakes like she couldn't bear the thought of them. Like she _knew_ how bad they were, but didn't know how to stop. She told him that she’d been working a side job writing shitty reality TV show recaps for some stupid online magazine on top of her 50 hours a week at the research center. That she’d been pushing herself to stay awake longer hours so she can work and still drive home every weekend to take care of her grandmother, who, she admitted very quietly, she knew was going to die soon. 

They gave each other what they could not give themselves: grace, forgiveness, the ability to just let it all go and start again. They made each other new promises, made new plans to help themselves out of their own holes, made sure they knew where they both went wrong the last time so they could avoid it moving forward. They fucked once more for good measure and it felt like a hug goodbye after visiting a friend in another state. Somehow Peter knew he wouldn’t have her again for a long time, so he took care to memorize the feeling of her, not just around him as he thrusted into her, but in the broken place inside of him only she made him feel strong enough to face. 

MJ was gone from his hotel room by the time he got out of the shower after, but she left a note for him to keep. It said “ _let yourself be human_ ” in her messy script that he’d seen all over everything he’d had two years earlier. 

Somehow it completely broke him. 

The next day he got it tattooed on his forearm and then decided to take the summer off of Spider-Manning to travel. He set out to spend 2 weeks in Amsterdam and then, once he got there, realized he never wanted to go home. So he didn't. He called Tony and told him he wanted out. That he couldn’t do it anymore, not for a while, at least. He couldn’t keep being more spider than man. He told him because he knew he’d understand. Tony sounded almost as relieved as May. 

He found out through Ned that MJ’s grandmother passed away about 4 months after their night together in California. He sent her flowers and a card, but didn’t expect any response. He didn’t get one. 

He and MJ didn’t talk again until they were both 26. He lived in Amsterdam for a couple years, went to graduate school, and eventually took a research position in London to figure out if he _really_ wanted his Ph.D. MJ had, according to Ned, scored a dream position with Nat Geo’s traveling blog, which never kept her in one place for too long. Peter only read her articles once or twice a year when he was feeling particularly sad and nostalgic. He had dated some, not much. He was horrified to find out, after all the trouble he’d gone through to give up the superhero life and have a normal one, that it was really just him being generally bad at relationships that kept him from being happy before. Horrified in that he realized that being a person didn’t just mean _not_ being Spider-Man and actually included doing some hard work. And it _was_ hard work to be a normal person when you're enhanced. 

He was in the middle of that hard work, i.e. on his way to his therapy session when he caught a whiff of _MJ_ in the lobby of the office building his therapist works out of. MJ smelt very specific, a combination of coconut shampoo, vanilla perfume, and lemongrass deodorant that Peter had literally never smelt anywhere else. He recognized it right away and, when he whipped around to follow it, was met with the woman herself, curls perfectly framing her face as they fell out of her messy up-do, body hidden behind a long coat that looked like it cost more than Peter made in a week. She was sitting a few feet away, nose buried in a book as if she was in a waiting room. He hesitated only a second before he stepped closer to her and said hello, trying desperately to be normal when the reality that they hadn’t spoken in five years solidified inside his head. 

Like before, there was no awkwardness between them when there definitely should have been. They just talked quietly among themselves and caught up. Peter told her about quitting Spider-Man, which the second he said it, was sure she’d gathered by the lack of stories about him in the press. MJ told him about her job, which he actually knew a lot about due to his bi-annual stocking. They both did a bad job of hiding that they’d kept tabs on the other and as soon as they realized that, they dissolved into giggles. 

MJ explained that she was in London for business more than pleasure, though she had spent a few hours the night before watching Shakespeare at the Globe. She was interviewing the head of a mental health non-profit for a series about mental health care around the world. Her 3pm meeting had been pushed to 4:30 at the last minute and she was killing time in the lobby of the building as to not make the receptionist feel stressed by her presence. Peter almost shyly admits that he was there for a therapy appointment, but MJ just nodded supportively and told him she was glad he was taking care of himself. 

Eventually Peter had to leave for his session and bid her goodbye, but not before he’d thanked her for the advice on her note and for just _being her_. For knowing what language to speak to him in and for saying the right thing everytime. He showed her his tattoo and she called him an idiot but kissed his cheek softly and told him she was proud of him. Peter spent 30 minutes of his hour session revisiting old feelings he’d not ever mentioned to his therapist before. 

Later that night while he was doing the dishes from his dinner he got a text from MJ asking if he wanted to come have a drink at her hotel before her flight the next morning. He went. They fucked as soon as she answered the door, hard and fast and like they were breathing again after years of suffocation. After, again, naked and not looking in each other’s eyes, she told him her whole truth. 

She talked about her grandmother some, how much her death fucked MJ up. She apologized for not replying to his note, tried to explain why she couldn’t but he stopped her, told her he didn’t expect a reply, that he’d known she wouldn’t be able to. Then she cried in front of him for the third time in his life. He held her and cried with her, not even sure he knew what about except that _of course he knew what about._ After what could have been hours for all he knew, she told him the rest. Confesses to taking the job at Nat Geo so she wouldn’t ever have to spend another night at home again, because she couldn't conceive of making one without her grandmother in it. Peter told her he understood and that it was fine, that grief looks different for everyone and that there was no one right way to do it. She admitted to him that she didn’t even go back to clean out the apartment, just paid movers to put all the stuff in storage and left for work. She hadn’t been home to New York in 4 years. Peter just smiled and admitted that he hadn’t either. They fell asleep tangled together under dirty sheets with the weight of the world off their backs. When Peter woke up he only let himself watch the rise and fall of her chest for a moment before he forced himself out of bed. He scribbled out a note to her before leaving. 

“ _sometimes hurting is the only way to heal_ ”

Peter is 29 now and he lives in Queens, two blocks away from where he grew up and where his Aunt May still lives. He works as a professor at a community college and he spends two nights a week patrolling the city as Spider-Man. He’s back to his old ways of sleeping with people but never actually dating him, though he goes about it much more honestly than he’d done in the past. It took him 5 more months at trying to be a normal human before he had the sudden realization that he literally can’t be. He’s Spider-Man _and_ he’s Peter Parker and he won’t ever be happy unless he can figure out a way to balance both. He’s not sure he’s doing a good job, but he’s trying to and _it’s something_. 

MJ moved back to New York the winter of Peter’s 27th year. He knows this because she read her last article for Nat Geo announcing her career shift while helping May bake a Christmas pie that year. He hasn’t reached out to her or tried to maintain contact since their last run-in in London because he feels like what’s between them is tied to the past, and he’s been trying to focus on the future. It’s weird knowing they’re both in the city again, though, but he also knows it’s only weird because the last time they’d both been living in the city they’d been living there together, and that time is golden in his mind. Objectively he knows that it was hard and lonely for both of them, at the time, that they were both unhealthy and hurting, that their love for each other couldn’t make up for how much they both needed to grow, but it was still _everything_ to him. Nothing could touch it. MJ was the love of his life and he’s gonna be old a gray, happy to have loved her and been loved in return for at least those two years. 

This time he runs into her at a grocery store in Manhattan. He’s picking up fresh produce for a salad he’s supposed to make for a brunch with the Starks when she shouts his name from behind him. He turns and sees her there. Her hair is in a curly bob that just brushes her shoulders, and she’s wearing a sundress that flows all around her. For the first time in almost a decade she smiles and her eyes smile too. He goes in for a hug that she reciprocates with as much force. They get lost in conversation, of course, they always do, and they shop together for an hour before he realizes he’s late for brunch and has to head off. 

He walks out of Tony and Pepper’s apartment at 2:14pm and at 2:16 he texts MJ his address and asks her point blank if she wants to come over to have sex. 

She says yes. 

They don’t have sex that day. Instead they fall into their easy conversation again, walking with each other through their respective round-about way through life. MJ talks about her life now like it’s an oasis for her. Like, for the first time since he met her, she’s content with where she is. She tells him about her friends and old lovers and the wild slew of experiences she’s had in all the corners of the world. Peter tells her about his classes, about his students that ask interesting questions and are eager to learn, that hang on his every word and regard his advice with almost untouchable reverence. He talks about his little home, with 3 rooms in total, including the kitchen and bathroom, and the window-sill garden, and the fire-escape in the ally that he can use when he comes home after patrol. They talk. And talk more. And then even more still until it’s 4am and they’re walking to a 24 hour pizza place around the corner and joking loudly about how long it’s taken them to become real grown-ups and about how even still they’re not sure. They split an entire pizza and then pass out on Peter’s bed fully clothed until 11am when Peter catches MJ trying to sneak out and finally says what he’s kept to himself for too long. 

“I’m still in love with you,” he says to her, voice rough from sleep. She startles at the sound of it. 

At first, she doesn’t turn around, just keeps her body facing the wall and lets her voice carry back to him. “Peter,” she breathes out carefully. “It didn’t work before.”

Peter takes her hesitation as rejection, because he’s always held the belief that if she doesn’t say yes right away she’s just trying to come up with the best way to say no. “I was an unhealthy asshole who didn’t know myself before,” He argues. 

She nods slowly to herself, still facing the wall. “You think you know yourself now? You think you could balance being Spider-Man and someone’s partner?” She asks him quietly, and to his surprise her tone is not condescending. It’s curious, like she earnestly wants to know his answer. It disarms him, makes him feel a lot better about being more honest. 

He hesitates but then nods. “I know the important stuff. Still learning some, but I know that I have loved you for a dozen years and that I’ve been trying to be the kind of person who deserves the kind of love you gave me since the moment I lost you. I’d do anything for you, Em. I’d give up the suit again if that’s what you need.” 

At his words, MJ turns around and looks at him very with big watery eyes. He swallows tensely. “Peter I’ve spent the past eight years trying to find someone as worth investing my love in as you. And it worked, I found _myself_ and I’ve built a life that I feel happy with and I am good at living that life. I know I can live a good life all by myself. But—” She forces her eyes to lock on him and Peter feels his nerves like a physical assault on his chest. “I am so lonely without you. And I don’t even realize it. I’m not even know how alone I am around others until I'm with you. And then I remember what being _known_ feels like. What being accepted feels like...It’s better than anything I’ve ever found.”

Peter bites his lip and suddenly he feels like he’s seventeen again and he’s asking his acadec team captain on a date, nervous that she’ll laugh in his face and kick him off the team. “I— I can exist without you, Em. I can make a life that’s worth living having only had you for two years and a couple of back slides in California and London. But when I’m with you everything that I already love just gets better. I just. I’m always gonna love you, Em. It’s always gonna be this for me. I can go on, but I won’t be living for anything other than these meetings. You’re it for me, I am not gonna find anything better. I’ve known it since I was seventeen. You’re the best the world has to offer and I know, I _know_ I fucked that up before, but I was young and stupid and so covered in grief that I didn’t even recognize it as grief anymore, but I’m not that kid anymore. I want to be what you need.” 

There’s a tense moment that passes between them where MJ just stares at him, her face pulled into tense worry, her lip taking the brunt of it between her teeth. The expression looks so out of place on the woman who wears it, short hair and sundress giving her an air of lightheartedness that is decidedly at odds with her obvious inner-turmoil. She takes a deep breath and then walks straight-back over to Peter’s bed and climbs in underneath the covers, next to him. “We can’t fuck up this time,” she whispers as she curls into his arms, 

“We won’t. I won’t,” he reassures her. “I’ll do whatever you need me to. I’ll give up being Spider-Man.” 

“No. You can’t give up who you are. Just don’t make it the only thing that you are,” She replies softly and then she hides her face in his neck.

Peter smiles into her hair. “Okay, that sounds good,” he replies. 

“I love you too. I’ve loved you for a dozen years and I think,” she pauses and Peter waits for her out while she puzzles her words into place. “I think I’m probably gonna love you forever.” 

“I know I will love you forever,” Peter says firmly. MJ just scoots in closer and closes her eyes. 

“Okay,” She says a few minutes later. “I think we should have sex now. To finalize the agreement. Shake on it, if you will.” 

Peter grins above her head. “That sounds agreeable.”


End file.
